This will be a quick blog because time is running out – I only have 7 or 8 minutes until an acute case of Food Coma strikes and I’m reduced to a sloth-like state for the next 12 hours. But first, I want to tell you about my mission this Saturday evening – to find the best hamburger in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
I started with a Google search and a little reading and made a short list. I only had one hard rule – I wanted a Khmer (Cambodian) burger joint, not a Western or expat restaurant that served burgers. There are plenty of good U.S. or Australian joints with great burgers (Pickled Parrot on 104, Larry’s on 100, or FreeBird) but I wanted the local version of the American classic.
I started with a Google search and a little reading and made a short list. I only had one hard rule – I wanted a Khmer (Cambodian) burger joint, not a Western or expat restaurant that served burgers. There are plenty of good U.S. or Australian joints with great burgers (Pickled Parrot on 104, Larry’s on 100, or FreeBird) but I wanted the local version of the American classic.
The consensus choice ended with Mike’s House of Burgers, a spot located in a distant neighborhood, sharing a parking lot with a gas station. So I called up Sam Sam the Tuk Tuk Man, my trusty driver, friend, and spiritual advisor in matters like these, and asked him to accompany me (and drive,) who assured me he’d be right over. I waited extra long to leave my hotel room because I know Sam Sam is a man not to be rushed, but he still hadn’t arrived. Calling Sam Sam was no help, because he assured me he’d be right there, like he always does whether he is 2 hours away or around the corner (Khmer people refuse to use the word, “no,” which makes for some entertaining situations.) I spent the next half hour fending off other tuk tuk drivers who swarmed and battered me with offers to take me to the airport, go shoot an AK47, or punch me in the stomach for a dollar (our usual favorite game.)
Sam Sam finally pulled up and we shot off through traffic, around traffic, and even against traffic until we found Mike’s House of Burgers on Russian Boulevard by the Sokimex petrol pumping station. My first impression was that it’s sort of the House of Wax version of In and Out Burger and indeed, Mike – the Cambodian owner who escaped his war torn country in the 1970’s under Pot Pol and the Khmer Rouge, found refuge in the United States and grew to love the American culinary fare, the hamburger. He returned decades later and opened his own Cambodian version in 2009, to please his wife who couldn’t find a decent burger in their re-emmigrated homeland, so the story goes.
Sam Sam and I looked over the menu, including options for Mekong River fish burgers, chicken burgers, a Super Cry chilli burger, and the Chopstick Long burger. We settled on classics – a double with bacon and a single with bacon for Sam Sam. I offered to buy Sam Sam the $16 New Crazy Lion special – which includes something gaudy like 5 burger paddies, 10 pieces of bacon, 4 buns, a few fried eggs thrown in, and enough cheese to constipate every Cambodian national south of Siem Reap. He vehemently declined. We also ordered fries to share (not worth eating) and Cokes with free refills. Sam Sam was extra enthusiastic about the free refills, and explained how they work to me as much as his limited English vocabulary would allow, “You go back again again drink drink never leave!”
 We got our grub and it was damn good – great quality burger meet, the real bacon not the packaged kind, and a doughy bun that was far better than most of them I’ve eaten stateside. Of course, a Cambodian burger joint has plenty of southeast Asian nuances to ponder as I ate. There was the shelf of muscle-building protein powders and Pepto Bismol, a disturbingly comprehensive display of Cheerios boxes for sale, and how many restaurants in the U.S. have portraits of military generals and their wives mounted over the soda machine? |   |
My stomach must be shrinking from eating smaller meals of rice, noodles, and the occasional barbecued snake, because I could barely finish my burger. From the looks of it, Sam Sam was in noticable gastronomical discomfort himself, though it could be from smothering his fries with half bottle of hot sauce.
I was ready to go but waited patiently for him to put down 3 more free refills of Coke. “I so much hambugger me, I no can eat tomorrow!” he said with half a tomato hanging from his lip. With that cue to leave, we bowed goodbye to the staff at Mike’s and stumbled out into the Phnom Penh night, greeted by the dangerously mingled smells of car petrol and cigarette smoke.
-Norm :-)
I was ready to go but waited patiently for him to put down 3 more free refills of Coke. “I so much hambugger me, I no can eat tomorrow!” he said with half a tomato hanging from his lip. With that cue to leave, we bowed goodbye to the staff at Mike’s and stumbled out into the Phnom Penh night, greeted by the dangerously mingled smells of car petrol and cigarette smoke.
-Norm :-)
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